‘When is physical contact “unacceptable”?’ asked Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph. He may well ask. Sir Michael Fallon said after his resignation that some things were acceptable ten or 15 years ago that weren’t today. But the panel of Any Questions? last week were invited to say whether inappropriate behaviour wasn’t always unacceptable.
It’s not just Westminster. Marseille football fans’ subjection of Patrice Evra to ‘hateful attacks’ was ‘unacceptable behaviour’, the club said, but his response in aiming a kick at a fan’s head was ‘inappropriate’.
In the lost spirit of ‘Brexit means Brexit’, theatre management back in London declared: ‘Inappropriate behaviour by anyone working at the Old Vic is completely unacceptable.’ They might as easily have said ‘Unacceptable behaviour is completely inappropriate’.
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